


Long Hair and Jewelry

by artlesscommerce



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: Bertram Gilfoyle/Dinesh Chugtai, Transphobia, implied dinfoyle, trans gilfoyle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 03:05:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8561185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artlesscommerce/pseuds/artlesscommerce
Summary: The story of trans Gilfoyle."Look at you, with your long hair, and your jewelry. You call yourself a man? Never."To Bertram Gilfoyle, that indictment of his identity sounds more like a challenge than anything else.





	

He's not sure what the difference is exactly, but it's distinct, and he feels it acutely. At the age of six, Anna Gilfoyle knows nothing about anatomy. He thinks gender is decided at birth by listening to the baby's cry, discerning whether it sounds like a boy or a girl, and gender is assigned accordingly. Because of this, he thinks the switch is an easy fix: a haircut, a blue bike instead of a pink one, and definitely a wardrobe change.  
Most definitely a wardrobe change, he thinks, as he hitches up his skirt to inform his mother of the news.  
"Mommy, I need some new clothes."  
"What for? Don't tell me you ruined all those skirts already! At least you're playing outside but jeez, Anna, at this rate - "  
"Oh, that's another thing."  
" - Clothes are expensive and we're not made of money, baby -"  
"Mommy! Can't I get a word in edge size?"  
" _Edgewise_ , baby. And sorry, go ahead."  
"I need new clothes, not new skirts, clothes like the boys wear, you know, like the jeans with the big pockets and the sneakers with really loud velcro, the cool stuff. And another thing, I remember you told me if I was a boy you'd name me Thomas, so I think we should switch to that, unless you think of a cooler name. Like 'Spiderman Junior'. I realized I'm a boy, is my point. But I'd still like to keep my Minnie Mouse doll."  
His mother tells him no way, not in a million years, you're a girl, Anna, for Christ's sake, can't you see that, don't you know that God doesn't make those mistakes, don't mention this at school, if I get a call from the teacher your ass is grass, and you're gonna grow up and marry a man and have a baby just like everybody else.  
Anna is intelligent. He agrees. He asks if he can go play Mario now. He is smart enough to make sure it never comes up again for a very long time. 

By the time he's thirteen he knows the word, "transgender", and he knows the intricacies of this idea. It's clear to him that that's what he is, but he hasn't told anyone. For now, he's content to be the token Girl in his group of dorky friends, and he even gets a little rush from how shocked they are that he is consistently more talented than them at their precious machines. He loves driving their casual sexism into the ground, so he lets his female facade be a vehicle.  
Besides, there's a certain romanticism associated with having a secret.  
His friends don't know he wears a training bra to keep his already mercifully meager chest to a minimum. His parents don't know that he put the huge wad of gum in his hair voluntarily to get that major haircut. No one knows that the reason he wears stupidly baggy pants is to hide the pair of folded socks he stows in the front of his panties, to make it look, to himself at least, like he has a package.  
He goes by his last name because even if he was a girl, he doesn't like the name "Anna" anyway; not enough punch.

It's not until he's sixteen that he discovers his name. In English class they're reading Edgar Allan Poe and he falls in love with it because of course he does. "The Raven". Something about it resonates with him so thoroughly. Reading the poem is like reading a childhood diary: The thoughts were long since forgotten but reading them brings on an overwhelming anamnesis that envelopes him. Something about "The Raven" has echoes of familiarity that he can't place, like trying to remember a dream.  
Because the poem is so wholly _him_ that no volume of ice breakers could describe him better, he wishes that every time he meets someone, instead of introducing himself, he could just make them read this poem.  
Maybe he can do that, in a way...  
The obvious choice would be "Edgar" but he's never been one for overtness; a subtle homage will suffice. After some research, he finds it. His name. It's got punch, alright, but class, too.  
Bertram.  
It means "bright raven".  
His hair is grown out way past his shoulders he's sitting in the middle of his pink room when he discovers this, but he's never felt more like a man.  
Bertram. Much better than "Spiderman Jr."

Senior year, his closest friends know he's a man and accept him. Bertram planned on going away to college and transitioning there,  away from his parents, but maintaining some contact. He would've gotten away with it, too, if his stupid drunken idiot friend hadn't called the house asking for Bertram, "Bertram Gilfoyle, you know, the computer dude with the glasses." The description makes it impossible to play it off as a wrong number.  
"Computer Dude" becomes "Pieces of Broken Glass and Random Parts All Over the Floor Dude" when his mom walks into his room and silently swipes her arm across his desk, sending his computer crashing to the floor. She never forgot that day over ten years ago, when he was six, and she will actively discourage what's going on here.  
"Holy shit! What the fuck, Mom?!"  
"Anna - That's your name, _Anna!_  You really expect me to call you 'Bernard' or whatever you decided? And don't you dare curse at me, you little bitch, you're a young woman and goddamn if I'll let you forget it!" she's screaming.  
He realizes what's going on. "Look - "  
" _Look?!_  Why don't you take a fucking look, Anna!" hysterical now, she wrenches the top drawer of his dresser open, and piece by piece throws the contents over her shoulder into the middle of the room. "Bras, panties, camisoles! Look over there, a jewelry rack, look at these walls, and your duvet, they're fucking pink because this is a girl's room and you're a girl, you're a confused, deluded, mess of a girl!"  
"Mom - "  
"What the fuck do you think, that you're special? You want to make some kind of statement? You - "  
"Jesus fuck, can I get a word in edgewise?!" A beat. "My surroundings don't dictate my gender, that's stupid. And I don't expect you to call me _Bertram_ , or want you to call me that, because you're not fucking worth it!"  
His mother is dangerously quiet for minutes. Until she says, "What _does_ define your gender?"  
"I do."  
"You do. Ok, fine. Then let's look at _you_." She steps very close. "Look at yourself. Your long hair, your girly jewelry. You've got a woman's face, Anna, and a woman is all you're ever going to be, so get used to it." She storms from the room.  
Bertram makes a promise to himself that, one day, he will pass seamlessly as a man, and he'll wear jewelry and long hair while doing it.

He goes to college, where he continues going by his last name. He saves his name for someone special like a schoolgirl saves her virginity, yet somehow his name seems even more intimate than physicality.  
His college is near the border, and he makes his escape _immediately_ after he graduates. His car breaks down, which many would take as a sign he should surrender, but he takes it as a challenge. He leaves his cap and gown in the trunk, stuffing his wallet, CDs, and testosterone (he went to the doctor immediately after moving out of his parents' house, and took his prescription religiously. It showed; his face was always blue with stubble these days, and his voice was as deep as any other man's) into his backpack, and strolling right across the border to hitch a ride.  
The car that let him in was red, or used to be before most of the paint peeled off. The interior used to be black leather but was now just a coarse husk. A Baphomet decoration hung from the rear view mirror. The driver was a young woman whose attire was basically the car in clothing form: all black, Baphomet, bad.  
Bertram got in, said he was going anywhere the driver was willing to drive.  
After an hour he finally said, "I gotta ask, what's up with this?" He pointed to the decoration.  
"Oh, my Baphomet? I'm a LaVeyan Satanist."  
"Huh. Say, this is my stop."  
"Oh, come on." She gave him a look. "Don't be like that. I guarantee we're not what you think we are."  
"Sure. This just in: Satanists don't worship Satan!"  
"That's accurate."  
"What?"  
"We don't worship Satan. We don't even believe in Satan."  
"Then you're just an atheist trying to live on the edge."  
She doesn't respond. Not because she has no response, but because she's explained this so many times before that it seems like it just goes without saying. The roaring engine fills the silence just as well.  
They happen to be driving through a town around sunset.  
"You'll be okay if I leave you off here? There's a motel up the road, I think." She rubs her eye, tired from driving. Black eyeliner smudges even more.  
"Yeah. Thanks for the ride."  
"No problem." As he's getting out, the girl reaches into her bag and extracts a book. The binding is worn, and the yellow paper stands out staunchly against the peeling, pitch black paperback cover. She hands him the book. "Take this. I guarantee it's not what you think it is."  
It's The Satanic Bible by Anton LaVey. Nothing better to do in his motel room that night, he reads the whole thing. It's not what he thought it was.  
His reaction is the same but opposite of what happened with Edgar Allan Poe: The words seem so right, and resonate with him, echoing like the voices of old friends in his mind, but these ideas are totally alien to him. They don't have the familiarity of Poe. But Bertram finds the shiny newness of liberating truth very appealing.  
He wonders if the girl with the shitty car knows lack of aesthetics is a Satanic sin.

Late twenties, early thirties, is the real turnaround. He lives in the incubator for free, doing what he does best. He's part of something. Pied Piper. He's essential, they all are, really, and he loves it because he and this tight-knit, ragtag assortment of people somehow combines and forms the most coveted tech team in Silicon Valley: Richard, a twitching, nervous bird of a guy. Jared, self sacrificing to a fault, innocent as a rose in some regards, but always the one with answers. Erlich, bad at business and can't figure out how to get the jam into his yoghurt without his special spoons, yet a bit of a genius. Dinesh.  
He never knew what to make of Dinesh.  
He enjoyed Dinesh's company, he grudgingly admitted that. If he could deny it, he would, but honestly it's impossible to work borderline inhumanely long hours next to someone, then hang out voluntarily until obscenely late hours of the night without enjoying the other person's presence at least a little bit. Even if you spend the entire time insulting each other ruthlessly.  
Yet Bertram never knew what he categorized Dinesh as.  
Until he saw the man through the hole he smashed in the wall.  
Violently coding, Dinesh heard the crash and looked over just long enough for them to make eye contact before resuming his code. Dinesh's facial expression was pride, fondness, and exhilaration. Bertram stopped thinking about Anton only long enough to think, "That's my best fucking friend."  
That surprises him.  
Much later that night, after the arbitration win, and in the middle of the celebrations, Dinesh looks over at him and says, "Let's get high."  
Out by the pool, in their designated lawn chairs, Dinesh only takes one puff before saying, "This might be the weed talking, but that was honestly some pretty cool shit, Gilfoyle."  
Uncharacteristically heartfelt. Two can play at that game (everything's a competition when it comes to the two of them).  
The Satanist takes a drag, too. He runs a hand through his hair, but his ring gets caught on a knot in a particularly long strand. He's the epitome of a man.  
"This might be the weed, too, but you can call me Bertram. If you want. If you promise not to be a dick about it."

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this! Since this is my first fanfiction on here feel free to leave some feedback; I'd very much appreciate it!


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